And another UK Newspaper Article: The Times

[kesey]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

This is the second article on the Sony Reader coming to the UK that mentions battery life of 1680 page turns. Has Sony changed their specs from 8000, or just in the UK where the EU consumer protection is much more strict about certain things?

BOb

pilotbob, it is very likely that some P.R. company sent out a blurb with a typo in it. The journalists are using in depth research and hands-on experience of the PRS for their reports of course

http://www.waterstones.com/waterston...o?pPageID=1576

The above is the Waterstones' info page on the 505, and it mentions 6,800 pages as per the extract here:
"In for the long haul - the battery in the Reader from Sony only uses power each time you turn a page. This means you don't need to worry about it dying just when you get to the most exciting part of the book. With one single charge of the battery you can turn 6,800 pages. That's a lot of reading. If you do run out of battery, the USB charger which accompanies your Reader will have it up and running again in just four hours. There's also a portable mains charger available to buy as an accessory which completely recharges the Reader from Sony in two hours - ideal for when you are travelling."

[Riocaz]

The Sony website says "almost 7000"

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/rd-reader-ebook/prs-505

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Riocaz

The Sony website says "almost 7000"

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/rd-reader-ebook/prs-505

Erm... take that with a grain of salt. That link also says:

Uses the EPUB standard: the most widely used eBook type. But can also read other very common text documents.

I don't think ePub is the "most widely used" ebook type. I would say (guess) PDF is the most widely used followed closely by mobi.

BOb

[Flub]

We have plenty of 505 users here. How many page turns do you think you get?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Flub

We have plenty of 505 users here. How many page turns do you think you get?

I can tell you from when I used my 500. The answer is "enough". I used to
charge it about biweekly.

I was just curious what Sony's "offical" number was now... I know it was always much higher than what you would see in practice.

BOb

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

This is the second article on the Sony Reader coming to the UK that mentions battery life of 1680 page turns. Has Sony changed their specs from 8000, or just in the UK where the EU consumer protection is much more strict about certain things?

BOb

Duh, it's metric pageturns

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

Duh, it's metric pageturns

[kesey]

Originally Posted by acidzebra

Duh, it's metric pageturns

You said it. That sort of thing got a repair job on the International Space Station in bother a few years ago. Our transatlantic brethren had a minor confusion between imperial and metric. Sure what's a few centimetres between friends?

[Cookie Monster]

Well if they say 8000 page turns and it only lasts a quarter of that they'll get a lot of RMAs as people will think the battery is dodgy. Oh yes and the bad publicity that would generate.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Cookie Monster

Well if they say 8000 page turns and it only lasts a quarter of that they'll get a lot of RMAs as people will think the battery is dodgy. Oh yes and the bad publicity that would generate.

All the manufacturers use figures like that - they come from PVI, the screen manufacturer. It is an accurate figure, but a completely artificial one; it's what you'd get if you started with a fully-charged battery, then flipped pages as fast as you could until the battery was flat. It doesn't reflect "typical" use. Rather like fuel-consumption figures for a car.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

All the manufacturers use figures like that - they come from PVI, the screen manufacturer. It is an accurate figure, but a completely artificial one; it's what you'd get if you started with a fully-charged battery, then flipped pages as fast as you could until the battery was flat. It doesn't reflect "typical" use. Rather like fuel-consumption figures for a car.

Are you sure about that? I thought they measured the energy consumption of the display for displaying a new page and then just used that to compute the number of pages for a specific battery.

[HarryT]

That's what I meant, Tommy - apologies if I wasn't clear. PVI supplies the power consumption data for a page, and the manufacturer simply works out the theoretical number of pages that can be displayed, based on their battery capacity. It doesn't correspond to "real world" usage at all.

[garygibsonsf]

The second article mentioned in this thread suggests UK publishers are apparently intending to charge normal, full UK paperback price for ebooks; ie, £7.99 for an ebook which might otherwise be only four or five quid after discount on Amazon or Play.com. This concerns me, since unless there are some pricing schemes coming up, the UK publishers could lose a lot of business to US online booksellers who charge at times considerably less.

I'm holding my breath, mind, until the Waterstones ebook store goes live in a day or two, but I'm a touch afraid people might balk at the 'silly' prices some publishers might try and foist on them. It'll make people less inclined to pay two hundred quid for the machine if they think they're going to have to pay the same price as they would for the equivalent paperback every time they want something new. It could also encourage darknet downloads. Has anyone seen any online articles regarding the ebook pricing schemes here or in the States?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by garygibsonsf

The second article mentioned in this thread suggests UK publishers are apparently intending to charge normal, full UK paperback price for ebooks; ie, £7.99 for an ebook which might otherwise be only four or five quid after discount on Amazon or Play.com. This concerns me, since unless there are some pricing schemes coming up, the UK publishers could lose a lot of business to US online booksellers who charge at times considerably less.

That's precisely the reason that I chose to go with a device which supports the wide-spread MobiPocket book format rather than be tied to one specific bookstore. The fact that there are many MobiPocket retailers means that there's real competition, and prices are low. I find that Mobi eBooks books are typically half the price of UK paperbacks.